Friday Food Round-Up!

Obviously this week we were craving all sorts of things that were Not European. So when we weren’t throwing down Chipotle like it was going out of style, this is what we were up to.

See also: Since you will lack the mental clarity/ability to feed yourself when you arrive back home, spare yourself the pain and meal plan/create a grocery list before you leave. You’re coming back to a barren pantry, people. You already know what you need and what your schedule for that week is.

In case you haven’t noticed, we are really working a theme with the meat-broccoli-rice meal. So this one really isn’t any different.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of skewer-type dishes that we have actioned sans skewers. Unless you are eating kebab at a Middle Eastern restaurant, skewers/shish kebabs are The Worst Ever in my opinion. They dry the meat out, nothing ever cooks evenly (shoutout to undercooked ovens and cherry tomatoes that have burst) and when you are removing the meat from the kebabs something always goes flying across the table. Plus, unless you buy pre-cut kebab meat from your grocery or butcher you have to do all of that additional work too.

STOP THE MADNESS.

So we cut to the chase and actioned these with yet more of The Cheapest Chicken Thighs Ever. Since it was 90 degrees outside, we initially threw them into the grill pan until they were crispy on both sides and then moved them into the 450 degree oven we were roasting broccoli in for 10 minutes. WIN.

The flavor on these is absolutely incredible if you are into The Spicy Things. If you hate spice or are an extremely mild-spice person they will not be for you.

I was actually supposed to go out for a fancy-pants Minneapolis Restaurant Week dinner with some sorority sisters but…jet lag. Thursday has been the worst day for me on these return-to-work weeks and I think it has to do with cumulative buildup of stress throughout the week. That I managed to avoid a migraine this time around (I was 3/3 before) was nothing short of A Miracle.

When I cancelled, what I had sitting around the house were the ingredients for Exactly This. Except for the part where I didn’t have any mint and so I threw cilantro into the cakes and cilantro into the salsa and called it Good.